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Amazing Grace
William Wilberforce was not the only campaigner against the slave trade in the early nineteenth century, but he was the MP who doggedly presented his bill to Parliament year after year, the one around whom many of the campaigners rallied. Amazing Grace, made by Walden Media, who are behind the Chronicles of Narnia films, is the story of his struggle. It opens with Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) being taken to the home of his cousin Henry Thornton (Nicholas Farrell) to be cared for. William's health and his will to keep on fighting have broken after fifteen years of campaigning. The story of how Wilberforce reached this point is told in long flashbacks, partly as he tells the story to an idealistic young woman, Barbara Spooner (Romala Garai).
Amazing Grace is a superb film - powerful, moving and inspirational. Michael Apted's direction and Steven Knight's screenplay are both excellent. Apted conveys the horror of slavery without assailing viewers with endless scenes of slaves being mistreated. It is our awareness of the reality behind the story that makes it so disturbing. What helps to drive it home is the exceptional performances as characters in the film reflect on how the slaves are treated.
Ioan Gruffudd is excellent as Wilberforce. At first, he wrestles with others' expectations of him. He has recently been converted and contemplates leaving politics for a life of devotion to God. Others, including his good friend William Pitt (Benedict Cumberbatch), are of the opinion that he would be wasting his gifts. Pitt asks him, 'Do you intend to use your beautiful voice to praise the Lord or change the world?' A little later, Pitt brings some people to dinner at Wilberforce's house - all of them anti-slavery campaigners including Thomas Clarkson (Rufus Sewell), Hannah More (Georgie Glen) and Olaudah Equiano (Toussou N'Dour), a former slave. 'Mr Wilberforce, we understand you are having a problem deciding whether to do the work of God or the work of a political activist,' says Clarkson. 'We humbly suggest you can do both,' adds Hannah More.
As a result, Wilberforce throws himself into leading the parliamentary campaign, gaining some formidable enemies in the process, not least the Duke of Clarence (Toby Jones) and Lord Tarleton (Ciarán Hinds), MP for Liverpool. The bill which he presents is defeated again and again, despite the tide of public opinion turning against the slave trade. Eventually, it grinds Wilberforce down, and he feels utterly defeated as he tells his story to Barbara.
However, Barbara inspires Wilberforce to fall in love and to go on again with the struggle. He visits his old preacher John Newton, the former slave trader, played very movingly by Albert Finney. Newton, old, blind and dressed in sackcloth because of his remorse over the deaths of twenty thousand slaves on his ships is dictating his memoirs when Wilberforce arrives. Newton tells him, 'This is my confession. You must use it... Though my memory is fading, I remember two things: I'm a great sinner and Christ is a great saviour.'
Wilberforce's victory was a wonderful turning point in history. Lord Charles Fox (Michael Gambon) declares, 'When people speak of great men, they think of men like Napoleon - men of violence. Rarely do they think of peaceful men. But contrast the reception they will receive when they return home from their battles. Napoleon will arrive in pomp and in power, a man who's achieved the very summit of earthly ambition. And yet his dreams will be haunted by the oppressions of war. William Wilberforce, however, will return to his family, lay his head on his pillow and remember: the slave trade is no more.'
The relevance of this film for our own age can hardly be overstated, with human traffickers still smuggling people across many borders to be slaves - even into our own country. The world still needs changing; it still needs committed Christians like Wilberforce who will not rest until society has been transformed. As Pitt said to Wilberforce, 'Surely the principles of Christianity lead to action as well as meditation.'
Tony Watkins, March 2007